Copyright: https://rusi.org/event/annual-chief-defence-staff-lecture-and-rusi-christmas-party-2018 - Repost at RIEAS web site on 15 December 2018.

The Speech

Good evening – it’s a great privilege to be with you this evening to give my first annual Chief of the Defence Staff lecture precisely six months after I started in the job. And without getting overly excited I guess there’s never been a better week for a CDS to be controversial …but just before you get too excited, I hope I can live up to the billing I have just received. Read more

The former secretary of state pushed one president to use China to isolate the Soviet Union. These days, he’s counseling almost the reverse—and officials are listening. Henry Kissinger suggested to President Donald Trump that the United States should work with Russia to contain a rising China. Read more

FUTURE OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY – NOT WITHOUT BLOCKCHAIN

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr)Publication date: 4 March 2018

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Re-search Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

If you are reading this article it means you are directly involved in the world of internet, this wonderful innovation has made it possible to connect everyone around the world directly. Through this innovation, the most promising new disrupt technologies have emerged for the future; Thus, the world of the blockchain. It is right to ask if the blockchain technology is a disruptive innovation? why is this novelle technology pacing slowly? This because the technology has only reached the required level of maturity wide mainstream use. What is a disrupting technology? It is the one that displays established technology and revolutionizes industry or ground shaking product that creates a completely new industry...Read more

TRUMP’S SECURITY STRATEGY TO PUT ‘AMERICA FIRST’:THE CONTINUANCE OF A UNIPOLAR WORLD SYSTEM

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 11 February 2018.

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Eerily familiar to the Cold War days, President Donald Trump announced his ‘America First’ National Security Strategy (NSS) in mid-December. It is imperative, therefore, to uncover how Trump intends to maintain the unipolar world system. Posturing the United States to rise above the “revisionist powers” like China and Russia and to defeat the “rogue regimes” of Iran and North Korea was one of his stated objectives. He warned that “weakness is the surest path to conflict” and “unrivaled power is the most certain means of defense.” ..Read more

NATO INTELLIGENCE

At the crossroads of informal intelligence sharing and institutional streamlining

Bob de Graaff(Professor for intelligence and security studies at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands)

Copyright: Atlantisch Perspectief (Academic Journal (6-2017) - published in the Netherlands. Publication in RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 21 January 2018

In public parlance NATO intelligence for a long time seemed to be an oxymoron. And indeed, in spite of inter alia the existence of both a Civilian and a Military Intelligence Committee a civilian Intelligence Unit, a military Intelligence Division, a Situation Center and, since 2003, a Terrorist Threat Intelligence Unit, lack of trust and a common culture among the member states obviated large-scale intelligence sharing. NATO intelligence was more or less US intelligence, in as far as the US was willing to share intelligence with its partners. The appointment of Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven as NATO’s first Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security in late 2016 must have come as a surprise to many and should be a clear sign of the recognition of today’s relevance of intelligence to NATO’s alliance. However, NATO has been involved in (counter) intelligence much longer than often thought. James L. Mader’s Ph.D. dissertation about NATO’s 450th Counterintelligence Detachment in the 1950s, which he defended at the University of Utrecht on November 28, 2017, shows that NATO multilateral (counter ) intelligence cooperation has existed much longer than people often think. Read more

QUO VADIS EUROPEAN SECURITY?

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 4 January 2018

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Re-search Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

“Quo Vadis” or “Where are You Going European Security” is the question because the real threat to European security is the lack of solidarity among Europeans. Europeans are the biggest threat to European Security. This is not a new observation. Europe has a history as a continent at war. When there hasn’t been war there have been periods, even long periods, of non-war but in these there has been little mood that there is true long lasting peace. During these there have stability that has enabled economic development. But the trends and historical cycles of integration and fragmentation are becoming shorter endangering the current state of non war. .. Read more

TRUMP RETURNS “JIHAD” TO INTELLIGENCE

Raymond Ibrahim(Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

President Trump’s new national security strategy is set to return words relevant to understanding Islamic terrorism—such as “jihad”—that had been expunged from the Intelligence and Defense communities’ lexicon, most notably under the Obama administration. According to the new strategy document, “The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations”; the document also vows to “pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are stopped before they ever reach our borders.” Read more

The current political climate in Washington DC towards the American Intelligence Community (AIC) is perhaps at an all-time low. Not only is there a special prosecutor taking over for a fired FBI Director to investigate the President of the United States, trying to determine if the Commander-in-Chief in fact colluded with a foreign nation to undermine the sanctity of the American electoral system, that same President seems to take every opportunity he can to denigrate, call into question, and heap insults upon the AIC in its entirety...Read more

THE RISE OF FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 21 November 2017

Mission

FEMA’s mission is to support citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards.History

For 38 years, FEMA's mission remains: to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of "A Nation Prepared."FEMA can trace its beginnings to the Congressional Act of 1803. This act, generally considered the first piece of disaster legislation, provided assistance to a New Hampshire town following an extensive fire. In the century that followed, ad hoc legislation was passed more than 100 times in response to hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters...Read more

THE CZECH ELECTIONS – FIGHTING FOR THE POLITICAL AND CYBER-SPACE

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 5 November 2017

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Re-search Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

The Pirate Party are buccaneering their way into European politics, having found a foothold in the testy soil of Central Europe after colonising, in small measure, various hamlets in Sweden, Germany and Iceland. The Czech Pirates (PPCZ), a term certainly exotic by current political pedigrees, managed to obtain over 10 percent of the vote, a result that gave them a rich harvest of 22 members in the parliamentary elections...Read more